what is it?
German uses two directional adverbs — hin and her — to encode the speaker's perspective on movement. Hin marks movement away from the speaker; her marks movement toward the speaker. Both words rarely stand alone: they combine with prepositions to form compound adverbs such as hinein / herein, hinaus / heraus, hinauf / herauf, and hinunter / herunter. These compounds also function as separable verb prefixes and appear in split question constructions.
when to use it
Movement away from the speaker → hin. Use hin (or a hin- compound) whenever the person or thing moves to a place that is not where the speaker currently is, or when the speaker is sending something away.
Movement toward the speaker → her. Use her (or a her- compound) whenever the person or thing moves to where the speaker is, or when the speaker is receiving something.
With verbs of motion that need a direction. Verbs like gehen, kommen, and fahren used with a path noun (e.g. die Treppe, der Berg) require a hin- or her- compound to specify the direction.
Split questions with Wo … hin? and Wo … her?. In spoken German, wohin («where to?») and woher («where from?») are frequently split: Wo gehst du hin? / Wo kommst du her?
Colloquial short forms. In informal speech, herein → rein, heraus → raus, herunter → runter (and their hin- equivalents rein / raus / runter) are very common. They are colloquial, not formal.
formation
The compounds are built by prefixing hin- or her- to a directional preposition. The table below shows the most common pairs, their colloquial short forms, and their meanings.
| hin- form | her- form | colloquial | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| hinein | herein | rein | into (away from / toward speaker) |
| hinaus | heraus | raus | out of (away from / toward speaker) |
| hinauf | herauf | rauf | up (away from / toward speaker) |
| hinunter | herunter | runter | down (away from / toward speaker) |
| hinüber | herüber | rüber | over/across (away from / toward speaker) |
When used as separable prefixes, the compound splits in main clauses: the prefix moves to the end of the clause.
The split question forms Wo … hin? and Wo … her? are built by placing wo at the start of the question and moving hin or her to the very end. This is the dominant spoken pattern; wohin / woher as single words are more common in writing.
examples in context
common pitfalls
Swapping the perspective. The most common mistake is using hin for motion toward the speaker and her for motion away. Always ask: is the destination where the speaker is? If yes → her. If no → hin. For example, if you are inside and you invite someone in, you say Komm herein! — not ✗ Komm hinein!
Dropping hin/her with path nouns. Saying ✗ Er ging die Treppe. is incomplete. Verbs of motion combined with a path noun (stairs, hill, river, etc.) require a directional compound: Er ging die Treppe hinauf / hinunter / herauf / herunter. Without it, the sentence has no clear direction and sounds unfinished.
Treating rein/raus/runter as formal. These short forms are colloquial. They are perfectly natural in conversation, but in writing — especially formal writing — use the full forms herein / heraus / herunter (or their hin- equivalents). Do not avoid rein/raus/runter in speech — they are the normal spoken variants.
Three sentences, graded here. Nothing is saved and no account is needed.
Das alte Sofa ist zu groß für die Wohnung. Wir müssen es die Treppe ___tragen.
Fill in the blank with the correct directional adverb compound (hinein, herein, hinaus, heraus, hinauf, herauf, hinunter, or herunter).